Wtf is going on in Consulting?!
What’s the deal with consulting undergrad recruiting these days? I’ve heard of companies:
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Only giving 25% offers to interns
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Delaying entire classes start dates by a year
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Rugpulling FT offers
What’s going on and what does the internship and FT recruiting timeline look like these days for undergrads?
Bump been wondering as well. Is this specific to only a few firms for 1 year or are many firms doing this? What’s the reason causing the sleazy recruitment practices?
Which firms have done this?
Can confirm Bain, OW and LEK for APAC/Asia. Not sure about other companies and other regions
Source: my friends who work in those companies. Also the news did an article on it
These firms have delayed start dates (usually providing compensation). Big difference between this and rugpulling an offer
what was the return offer rate for T2?
Don't work in consulting myself but have many friends at MBB in Tier 1 cities (NYC/London/HK).
From what I've heard, client work has slowed greatly. Many are on the beach for weeks or even months on end, as the global economy is jittery, this means strategic projects for expensive consultants are often paused. Naturally then, hiring gets also delayed / pushed as well. McK layed off a bunch of people a few months ago as well.
Things will turn around (they always do, consultants are always needed), and some of the ones with strong turnaround practices actually benefit from downturns. So they don't necessarily pull offers, but delay start dates with the hope that in a few months these new consultants can be staffed.
Consultants are not "always" needed. In fact, they aren't needed at all. They exist purely to cover management's ass, which is in itself not necessary
Sound like someone who doesn’t actually know what consultants do and is making a blanket statement.
How can you work in PE and say they are completely useless? Don't you have portcos that successfully used them? At our fund we've used them for some enagements and they created have created some meaningful value. (20-30% EBITDA improvement) Obviously not in every case, but consistently enough that we see value in them.
This isn't very difficult to understand:
The first two are absolutely things we have done, the third one I don't think we (Bain) would have done that, that wouldn't make sense.
Hey, my offer was also delayed by 6 months. Would I be allowed to recruit for internships in the meantime or having signed the contract for a FT role am I committed to that and so not allowed to work anywhere else? Sorry if this is a dumb question aha was just wondering if I can intern in the meantime somewhere
From a legal perspective the contract is for you to work for X from Date YY.
In the contract you signed there will be conditions, but these should concern Time during your work with X and after working for X. Beforehand should be good for you to do anything (just be mindful that that company might then have restrictions for work you can do after working with them).
I personally would take the time off, but only because I am able to. If if needed a job I 100% would go for something else in between
I have a few interviews lined up in the new year for 2024 consulting summers but already have a high finance 2024 summer lined up. Wondering if it’s worth just waiting for 2025 FT recruitment if consulting summer conversion rates are so poor atm?
One of the major MBB offices (NYC/Chi/SF) is planning to convert 25% of their 2024 intern class. I don’t think there will be many open spots for FT recruitment if the market does not significantly rebound
Does delaying start dates just overcrowd the next years class? If a group is supposed to take 50 kids every year but pushed the 2023 kids to 2024, wouldn’t the 2024 class have 100 kids starting?
There’s never any obligation on the part of companies to honor these agreements. They can also reduce # FT offers they extend to summer 2024 interns.
Optimistic view would be to say the US economy does amazing next year so they need to hire all 100 interns.
They can just delay the 2023 analysts to 2024 and cut down hiring for the 2024 start date which is what many firms are doing rn
This makes a lot of sense - there have been hiring freezes/layoffs/delayed start dates/pulling FT offers across all industries (not just consulting) since 2022, and it will likely continue. However, this is not the case across all verticals (this is a golden age for private credit and restructuring recruiting).
I feel bad for the 2024 interns. Conversion rate will be extremely low. The thing is consulting is the first thing to go on a company’s PnL, and I really don’t see the industry bouncing back to where it was for a while. Asia is not really relevant here since it’s MBB has had a hard time there anyways due to cultural reasons.
Lots of over hiring during COVID boom and the great resignation. I would imagine that those who jumped ship now quickly find themselves without a job.
Not at an MBB, but my firm is the having the same issues. The reasons are:
1. Deal market was red hot for years and the firm way overhired to accomodate that need
2. In conjunction with point 1, a lot of the hires we made candidly were not up to par. That's not necessarily their fault, as consulting is not for everyone as it is and they got shitty training during the pandemic. That said, if you're hired in at a huge premium in comp and aren't billing or are a disaster on a project and are holding up potential productive resources on the bench, you're at risk of being redundant during hard times. Maybe I've just become the asshole manager, but the new hires we've had definitely aren't as solid as the associates turned seniors/managers we hired pre-pandemic. Same with experienced hires with no prior experience in consulting
3. The job market just isn't good right now and nobody is hiring due to bad macro. Rising rates will necessarily slow the pace of capital allocation/investment, which means less need for consultative services. I don't see this getting better anytime soon unless the Fed cuts rate. I'm not an economist, but I'm betting if the Fed has to step in and cut rates, it'll be because demand falls off a cliff and we risk going into a deflationary spiral. Aka, things will get a lot worse before rates go down, which the market, both the stonk and the job markets, aren't taking into account right now. My firm still think we'll see a recovery in H2-2024, which candidly makes me super nervous, but I've already gone way past the scope of this discussion.
Long story short, keep trying, but I'd look into less economically-sensitive areas of consulting if you really want to break in.
By less economically sensitive areas do you mean RX/Tax consulting and/or typical strategy/CDD within specific industries?
Firms have been saying every quarter that next quarter will be better. We’ve been hearing this since Q2 2022 from bankers and consultants. Meanwhile multiple lay off rounds further here we are
I'm with you 100%. Everyone is kicking the can down the road expecting things to turn around in the near future. This can also be seen in the markets with the yield curve pricing in cuts early next year. I personally believe, and I admit that so far I've been wrong on this, that we're entering a potentially new paradigm where growth won't be super easy due to unfavorable demographic changes, increasing geopolitical issues, etc. I don't think deals will be that easy to do and companies can't just afford outside consultants at high bill rates if they're not really growing themselves. This means professional service hiring is going to be dog shit until the Fed actually cuts rates, outside of restructuring or compliance type of work. The Fed cutting rates means things aren't good because it'll only be to avoid a deflationary spiral and I think the market as a whole is underestimating how bad the next crash will be given all the leverage that's in the system already.
I’m a target in Canada, RB Canada rug pulled two people I know (one was a week away from start date). I got a full time offer at a T2 and so far they haven’t said anything about delay. MBB in canada hired this year but it was mainly re-hiring interns as far as I know, I only know of two people at my school who got MBB full time without internship. Everyone I networked with told me Oliver Wyman Canada is in pretty dire straits from a hiring standpoint, they posted a job ad but I doubt if they actually hired (I got a referral and didn’t even get an interview). Accenture didn’t hire at all this yr, Monitor Deloitte seemed business as usual, and a few people told me S& Toronto is hiring big time for their finance practice apparently. EYP seems business as usual.
EY-P is doing well in Canada. Took on ~10 campus hires this September as planned - doesn't sound like that much but remember we are only ~150 headcount so we are growing against the headwinds. Regular campus hiring this year as well. I actually got asked if I'd want to move my start date up. We are a separate firm from EY-P USA because of how the Big Four are structured so we've been insulated from much of the doom and gloom there.
Edit: Agree with everything else you've said except on Monitor - apparently a lot of interns (like more than half) did not get return offers, which is wild.
You’re right; I heard EYP Canada is doing quite well actually, so I may have understated that in my original comment. They have some extremely competent partners who generate a lot of business from what I’ve gathered
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